Usagi Quest (CK3/Princess Maker) (Sailor Moon)
Interlude: Star Twinkle - Episode Negative One
Lunaryon
Dual Aurora Wave
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Interlude: Star Twinkle
Episode Negative One
Episode Negative One
June 23, 1992
Tuesday Evening
Hikaru Hoshina has been a very good girl of late, which is why Mom let her lug her telescope up the hill so late at night to stargaze out in the open. It's much better than having to work from her bedroom. The seeing here is so much better.
Humming a part of the quiet tune that she can't ever fully remember, she turns her flashlight- painted with red nail polish so as not to spoil her night vision- back on and looks at her sketchbook. She loves tracing the patterns of the stars she can only see through the lens, imagining the ways that the twinkling lights can link together into new, secret constellations that only she knows, ones that she can add to the eighty-eight official ones.
Not just the stars, either. Her bedroom window's at the wrong angle for a good view of the ecliptic plane. So these are the best viewing conditions for the planets that she's had with the ten-centimeter telescope in a while… or they would be, if more of the planets had risen. But ever since she heard about the Sailor Senshi, she's been wanting to get as many good looks at the planets- any planets- as she could.
She got a glimpse of Mercury in the deepening twilight, following close behind the sun- and she swears it's true, it's brighter than ever, bright even to the naked eye, the rumors going around are true. Something about the image in the telescope… says something, calls to her somehow. But then Mercury sank behind the hills and she turned her attention to Jupiter, and got the best look at the king of the planets that she's had outside the observatory in months.
She's lucky her parents didn't catch her sneaking out at four in the morning on Friday to see the conjunction of the moon and Saturn. She felt like she was in on a little secret, in such a quiet hour, seeing something no one else was a party to. Even if that isn't really true. There was a strange, almost trembling feeling in the air, something about the texture of the blackness between the stars, as if she was seeing something important.
Hikaru isn't sure that she believes, as her father does, that the stars dictate the future. But she first learned about other planets at his knee, before she was old enough to read. It was the start of everything, and so she keeps up with the horoscope, if only to feel a little closer to her father, who travels the world searching for strange and impossible creatures.
And until a few short months ago, she supported him with everything she had. In a way, she still does, though it's a little different. She still supports and loves her dad, but she knows there are strange things in the world. The giant monsters in Yotsuba City and Clover City, in Kamakura, in downtown Tokyo, are terrifying. The stories that she's heard about the DK Gang's 'youma' are worse. And now yokai are appearing more and more. She even saw, with her own eyes, just last week, a man wearing a very bright Hawaiian shirt the other day who had a tanuki tail and a leaf on his head.
Dad was right. But something about that knowledge has made Hikaru turn away from cryptozoology a little. Now the idea of guardian heroes with power that comes from the stars and planets in the sky seems… reassuring, compared to the monsters of the Earth.
Hikaru wonders. Does Saturn coming close to the moon in the night sky mean anything to the real Sailor Moon? To the real Sailor Saturn that she's sure must exist, even if she's never heard anyone mention her?
Well, she hopes that if it does mean anything for them, that it's good news.
She pulls her eye away, and her gaze traces beyond Arcturus to the Northern Crown. She looks at it… and imagines that crown of stars…
"Hello there, child."
The voice is high and mild and strangely, almost preternaturally, calm.
"Eep!" Hikaru squeaks, whirling around and trying to find who snuck up on her…
But there isn't anyone there. Just the trees and the grass and the pale furred creature near the path she took to get here.
It's got silky, gleaming white fur and a huge fluffy tail and long catlike legs and trailing, strangely structured ears with a pair of- they're not really earrings, seeming to float.
And it has two piercing, bright, red, gleaming little eyes.
And it talks.
It tilts its head to one side, regarding her. Its voice still has that oddly penetrating sense of perfect calmness to it. Strangely, its lips don't appear to move as it speaks.
"There is no reason to be afraid. I will certainly not attack you. Tell me, child, do you wish to become a magical girl?"
Hikaru's hands fly to her face. "Ohhh! Like the Sailor Senshi, or the Pretty Cure?" Hikaru does not see the silky-furred creature flinch partway through that sentence, as that particular microexpression is too subtle to be detected by the human eye.
"I'm not familiar with these 'Pretty Cure.' Enlighten me."
"Well…" Hikaru goes on for most of a minute, explaining as best she can. When she finishes, the creature nods slightly, and the golden rings that float strangely around its ears bob entirely out of synch with the motion.
"If you became a magical girl, you could do such things if you desired it. You could certainly fight such monsters, as the Pretty Cure do."
"Or the Sailor Senshi?"
"To become such a one would be quite an achievement, don't you agree? Although… there is one condition, before you could begin your journey."
"...What's that?"
"You'll need to make a wish, child."
Hikaru frowns. "Wait, the condition of becoming a magical guardian heroine is making a wish? That doesn't make sense…" A sudden, uncharacteristic suspicion comes to Hikaru's mind, as though this might be a story that ends sadly. "Is the wish something I'd be… giving up? Is this some kind of curse or something?"
"The wish will come true, as specified, if it is in my power to grant it."
"I… oh. Well, I guess it stands to reason that you can't make just any wish come true. What are the rules?"
"The rules are complex. My circumstances are somewhat limited. But if you make a wish that is not within my power, I will tell you. You can make another if you like. It wouldn't do any good to wish for impossibilities, after all."
"I… um… um. Oooh, this is a tough one…" Hikaru begins to think furiously. She absolutely does want to help fight evil like the Pretty Cures! But wishing. Um. Um!
The creature tilts its head again. "Under more favorable circumstances, I might read a wish from the silence of your mind. But we exist in such troubled times, and you have quite the vigorous imagination."
"I do? Uh… thanks!" She's been told that before, but never by a mind reader.
"However, I can still grant your wish, if you can articulate it clearly."
"Oh. Well. Um." She can think of so many things!
Wow, that is really hard. There are so many things that she could wish for. She could wish that she could grow up to be an Astronaut… but she can do that anyway. It will just take time.
She could wish to go to the stars, to see space!
But that's just being an astronaut again. Oh! What about wishing that everyone on the world knew about the constellations that she made. Adding them to the official ones.
But that feels kind of selfish. What about making it so that no one is sad anymore, or so that no one gets scared? Or maybe it would be better to wish that no one was mean, but… that sounds like a really big wish. And the creature said that some wishes are beyond its power. Maybe not those.
She could wish to meet the Sailor Senshi. To be a Sailor Senshi. Wait, if she wishes to be a magical girl, and then after that she is turned into a magical girl, would that make her a double magical girl?
Is that a thing? It might not be a thing. It might be a thing though.
What about adding a new star into the sky! Or bringing Dad home right now, so that he can meet with the yokai of MCAT! He'd love that!
A wish that she wasn't an Aries but a Cancer instead?
Or that she had the biggest and best telescope in the entire world!
Wait. No. "I've got it! I wish-"
- Location
- Hell.
- Pronouns
- She/They
oh god fucking dammit.
- Location
- Colorado
Okay, I feel kind of bad for being right, but can someone pick up the phone? Because I fucking called it.Interlude: Star Twinkle
Episode Negative One
June 23, 1992
Tuesday Evening
Hikaru Hoshina has been a very good girl of late, which is why Mom let her lug her telescope up the hill so late at night to stargaze out in the open. It's much better than having to work from her bedroom. The seeing here is so much better.
It's got silky, gleaming white fur and a huge fluffy tail and long catlike legs and trailing, strangely structured ears with a pair of- they're not really earrings, seeming to float.
And it has two piercing, bright, red, gleaming little eyes.
And it talks.
It tilts its head to one side, regarding her. Its voice still has that oddly penetrating sense of perfect calmness to it. Strangely, its lips don't appear to move as it speaks.
"There is no reason to be afraid. I will certainly not attack you. Tell me, child, do you wish to become a magical girl?"
....
"Well…" Hikaru goes on for most of a minute, explaining as best she can. When she finishes, the creature nods slightly, and the golden rings that float strangely around its ears bob entirely out of synch with the motion.
"If you became a magical girl, you could do such things if you desired it. You could certainly fight such monsters, as the Pretty Cure do."
"Or the Sailor Senshi?"
"To become such a one would be quite an achievement, don't you agree? Although… there is one condition, before you could begin your journey."
"...What's that?"
"You'll need to make a wish, child."
Edit: Of course it's also April Fools, but this isn't really funny. I guess it between the date and the title this could be a great setup for a 'retconned' Sailor Pluto vs the Incubators arc.
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- Location
- Hell.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Uuuuurgh, having to deal with incubators is not what I needed todayyyyy…
Ekzentric Lohner
I miss Wildstar...
Before everyone descends into panic, remember what today's date is, at least if you're in UTC-8:00 or to the east of it.
- Location
- Colorado
It's not funny enough to be a good April Fools joke, at least not yet. Between both the source materials, the timing, and the title, this seems like a good setup for some time travel bullshit.
Edit: Sorry, 'not funny enough' sounds kind of mean. I guess what I'm saying is that April Fools 'jokes' don't have to be literal jokes, but when they aren't they're more than just a punchline? I guess I'm saying I expect this interlude to be 'real' or 'serious,' but it might not have happened any more by the time it's over.
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- Location
- Colorado
They've already been given a non-April Fools reference in the latest All-Stars bit, so they don't seem to be completely absent from the story any more. This is basically confirmation that we're never going to see them in the main story, but they existed at one point, until Selene decided that no they hadn't.
Ekzentric Lohner
I miss Wildstar...
Not as they were, at least. There was mention of winning the peace after winning the war, so I imagine there's a fairy realm somewhere with bunnycats that aren't emotionless grief harvesters.
- Pronouns
- He/They
Imagine if this is one of those and it's all going to turn out fine.
It must be said, the Dark Kingdom has shown a surprising and commendable willingness to try new things. Something like half the operations we knocked over had form of experiment going on. They aren't just eating people because that is the way they have always done it.
Unless Hikaru Hoshina is about to get involved in the battle then I really don't care. One more long term problem to add to the ever growing pile of them.
Although didn't the disembodied voices from All Stars: Beginnings - Part 2 mention that this problem had been reconed?
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- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Coobie can not into this time flow.
Though posting it so early it is still late at night for some people probably made catching it as an April Fools a bit harder.
Though posting it so early it is still late at night for some people probably made catching it as an April Fools a bit harder.
To everyone's horror, it actually works.
And then Precia kidnaps Usagi to recover it/use Usagi as part of the dimension breaker Jewel Seed array and the Garden raid becomes a multicross as Nanoha, the Dark Kingdom, the Senshi and every single Pretty Cure assaults it at the same time
Besides, I think Baba Yaga got the orphan adoption gig already
Warp_Beacon
Love is Magic (C) Slaanesh
- Location
- Dungeons of the Pleasure Palace.
A little idea for an April Fool's joke.
Hmm. Scans of the local star show that its center contains a colossal amount of Grief. The team believes it would be appropriate to extract this Gore and absorb it, we estimate a 98.7% chance of successful extraction.
The incubators extract Metalya from the sun, but when attempting to process it into energy, it escapes while still in the incubators' home system, or not far from it.
Incubators: We seem to have miscalculated somewhere.
Hmm. Scans of the local star show that its center contains a colossal amount of Grief. The team believes it would be appropriate to extract this Gore and absorb it, we estimate a 98.7% chance of successful extraction.
The incubators extract Metalya from the sun, but when attempting to process it into energy, it escapes while still in the incubators' home system, or not far from it.
Incubators: We seem to have miscalculated somewhere.
StarSingerBlue
Zenryoku Zenkai !
- Location
- The City of Lights
- Pronouns
- They/It
IT'S THE RAT BASTARD. KILL IT NOW.
- Location
- Ohio
Welp, he picked a good crossover to be in for that. That's already a lot easier than it used to be, and is only going to become even more so.
Oh. Hello you. Showing up for April Fools? Or are you here in relation to that little tidbit we had about space-mom wageing a war with you? Your modus operandi does seem at least a little different: claiming that there were wished beyond your power.
Cause, uhh, that was very much not the case originally.
Also, pretty sure Hikaru here is supposed to be a pretty cure, don't poach.
Warp_Beacon
Love is Magic (C) Slaanesh
- Location
- Dungeons of the Pleasure Palace.
Actually, I have a question: Did Serenity destroy the incubators? What if they found Galaxia, and instead of running away in terror thought something like, "Well, it's just one, albeit incredibly powerful entity, all we have to do is isolate it from the power source that gives it power and we can destroy it and take all the power of the galactic cauldron for ourselves!"
Then at least we can say the Incubators died likeidiots Heroes.
Then at least we can say the Incubators died like
obssesednuker
Commander of 10 Million Men
- Location
- In the Kremlin, activating Perimtr.
In character too, given they tried that with Madoka.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Selene and Pluto did destroy the Incubators.
You know, that isn't not a description of what Madoka did